Six Word Saturday (9/18/10)

I can't think of six words!

So much has gone on with me in the last few days and I don't really know where to start.

I guess the first thing, I went to the dentist to get a filling Thursday.  I had Xanax and even nitrous (laughing gas).  I remember almost the whole appointment so I don't think the Xanax worked very well, and I never felt "light" or high or anything with the laughing gas so that was a total dud and waste of money.  I had headphones on and Def Leppard cranked but I could still hear the sounds although not as loud.  And, to be rather blunt, the device they use to remove saliva from your mouth really, really triggered me about my abortion.  Except it felt so odd to be saying to myself, "That sound is just like .." and at the same time not even caring or feeling anything emotionally about it due to the Xanax.  But I tell you one thing - I'm not going to the dentist again until something starts HURTING in my mouth.  I'm angry and I guess traumatized, and I'm vowing not even to go for cleanings.  The only blessing about the whole experience was that my husband took the day off and was actually really caring towards me afterwards (made me soup, popped DVD's in for me to watch in bed, let me sleep, and picked up the kids from the bus).

Also, I ended up getting in contact with my friend Becky on Facebook afterall.  I wrote her how much I missed her and how I compare all my friends to how she treated me, blah blah blah.  And she accepted my friend invite on Facebook and wrote me back, saying she couldn't place me till she saw where I was from and then she vaguely remembered me.  God, it hurts so much.  (I know I'm 43 but I feel like the little girl in this picture.)

Anyway, on to the last thing, I sent a check in to reserve my place at a Rachel's Vineyard retreat here in town on 10/22.  I guess the biggest thing I'm scared of is that my attempts at recovering from my experience are overkill.  I'm already in weekly counseling and I've done a structured recovery group and have read several books.  The only positive thing I know is that my counselor thinks it would be a great thing for me to go on this retreat.  I wish I knew how to say how good it feels (like having your heart sail off in a cheerfully colored hot-air balloon) when my counselor supports something I want to do or when he knows what I'm talking about or likes something that I like.

One down, eleven to go

In early August I read a cool blog post about setting a low goal.  Her example was a goal to read one Bible verse a day for a month, hee-hee!  Then the next month, reading one verse would be a piece of cake so you could do two verses that month, and so on, and by the end of a year you’ll be reading 12.

So I decided to set a low goal and start on August 15, and my low goal was to read one Bible chapter a day (since I love to read anyway and one verse wouldn’t be very satisfying).  And I’m happy to report that I completed this low goal!  As I've been saying, I've been reading Job (and actually some days I read more than one chapter).  And today I’m going to start a different low goal in another area of my life (it has to do with housework, ICK!) in addition to keeping up with the one Bible chapter a day habit.   Then for October I’m thinking about a low goal for my physical/health side.

By the way, I haven’t watched Dora the Explorer in about five years so could someone enlighten me what Swiper has to do with their inspirational post?  My guess is he steals things, so you don't want  him to steal your enthusiasm or something?

I found Becky

When I was a sophomore in high school, I went to see Lisa Whelchel (she played "Blair" on Facts of Life) who was then a Christian singer and motivational speaker.  I started going to the youth group of the church that sponsored her concert and I made a really good friend at that youth group whose name was Becky.  We were together so much in church that people started calling me "Becky" and her "Debbie."  We kept in contact after we graduated from high school and saw each other a lot after I got my first job.  Then I moved to Florida when I was 22.  The last time I really talked to her on the phone was when my oldest son was about 2 (so almost 17 years ago).

I have never forgotten her.  I compare my "friends" now to her.  I miss feeling loved like that.  I had my sister get some old pictures from my parents' house when she went for Labor Day weekend and she was supposed to get the one of me and Becky when we were 16, except my mom is a spaz and gave her the one of me and LISA when we were 17.  So for the past week or so I've been really down.  I know I'll never get to see Becky again so I really, really wanted that picture and it depressed me that I had nothing to remember her by.  I've been praying even though I feel selfish about it (but God already knows what you're feeling even before you pray it, you know, so why not tell him) that I find Becky somehow because I really miss her friendship and love, and I even prayed a halfhearted "okay, if You could find someone EXACTLY LIKE HER, that would be okay too, I guess."  And just last night, I know this sounds crazy but I even prayed that it would be okay if Jesus was my only friend as long as I felt loved like that and as long as God didn't think I was insane for talking to him too much.

So today I was goofing around on Google and put in Becky's maiden name and where she graduated from high school and miraculously a page came up from her alumni group with names and email addresses of 1985 grads (and hers was on it!).  But I'm too scared to email her, because I wasn't 100% sure it was her, so then I plunked that email address into Google and found a few posts she made on a forum and she mentioned her husband so now I know 99% sure it's her.  And for kicks, since everyone's on Facebook these days, I searched her email address on Facebook AND SHE IS ON THERE!!!!  All I'm allowed to see is her profile picture but it's definitely HER!!!!

I'm kind of nervous that she wouldn't want to hear from me after all this time, and "you can't go home again" and what if she doesn't love me like that anymore, either.  So I'm kind of scared and haven't done anything with this info yet, but I guess I will pray about how worried I am that she wouldn't want to hear from me.  I mean, I'll more than likely never get to see her in person unless she comes to New Mexico.  But I told my husband that I think I found her and that I probably will want an unlimited minutes plan on my cell phone pretty soon because I could still call her all the time (if she likes me).  I'm scared but happy.

Six Word Saturday (9/11/10)

It's still scary nine years later

I'm not going to write very much about the feelings I had on that day in 2001 because where death is concerned I tend to get stuck and it's very hard to get out of those feelings.

On that day, I was reading emails from the May/June 1998 brides group I belonged to, and someone emailed that an airplane hit the World Trade Center in New York.  (Till that point I never knew those two buildings were called that.)  I turned on the news and a few minutes later the second plane hit.  The thing I remember most is all the people jumping.  I had nightmares about it for a long time afterward.  When I was awake, I obsessed about it -- "Were they scared?"  "Did it hurt?"  "Are they in Heaven?" "Do they see Claudia and my grandma?"  By the time I started counseling, almost six years had gone by and I still talked about it.  I wondered in one session, what if there was a really mean greedy CEO of a company on one of the top floors who had to jump, and could he have said, "God, please save me," and what chance did he have of getting to Heaven because he basically only lived 100% for God for the 23 seconds it took his body to fall to the pavement?

Well, that's all I can write.

God is everywhere, all the time, even in burning towers with people jumping out of them.  I've been reading in Job lately, and even in his worst times Job basically says that people think they have it so good but don't have God in their life and that he'd rather have nothing as long as he had God with him.  Like he is the leaf and God is the stream the leaf's floating in, and maybe things are calm or maybe things are violent, but God is still there so Job trusts God that everything's okay.  I still don't understand why terrorists attacked but God knows all about this and He saw everything that day and I'm trying to trust that God knows what's going to happen next.  And He will be with us then too.

Six Word Saturday (8/14/10)

Three years worth of counseling sessions

Today marks the 3-year anniversary of the first day I started counseling.  No, I'm not going to give a rundown of everything I learned, but it is a lot.

The biggest thing I learned -- the best thing --  happened the very first day.  This guy Mark who I'd never met before (and who never met me) listened to everything I said and I could tell he cared about me but the whole time I was there that day I couldn't get my head around WHY he did.  Why would someone who doesn't even know what a bad person I am care about me???  Then he gave me a DVD to listen to of someone's counseling testimony.  All the way home and even AT home I felt this comfortable softness, the same as I did at the office.  I put the DVD in and listened; it was a college student.  The thing that struck me so hard (even to this day), she said, "Mark was like Jesus to me."  That's when I had my "Jacob moment."  

Jacob from the Bible -- he had a dream about a stairway to heaven and God told him he would give him descendants and would watch over him.  Jacob was sooo excited about it and said "Surely the LORD is in this place and I was not aware of it."  (It's noteworthy that he used a stone for a pillow, a hard stone and it didn't bother him at all because he was having such a great dream.)

It wasn't Mark causing the comfortable softness I felt, it was God.  As soon as she said that, I knew.  "Surely the LORD is in this place and I was not aware of it."

Six Word Saturday (8/7/10)

"Well, there's a big surprise"

Yesterday those were the first words that popped into my head when I woke up, as the voice of Vinny Gambini from the movie My Cousin Vinny.  In that movie, two boys are framed and on trial for a murder in Alabama, and Vinny comes all the way from New York to be their attorney.  Except he's only handled accident cases fighting insurance companies ... and they've never gone to trial.  So Vinny makes a lot of mistakes in court and keeps getting in trouble by the judge.  One second he's saying something and the judge warns him about being in contempt of court, the next second he's riding the rickety bus to jail.  Being in contempt happened so often that when the judge threatened him with contempt again, Vinny muttered under his breath, "Well, there's a big surprise."

So this line pops in my head yesterday morning and I was thinking about it all day.  Vinny knew he wasn't an experienced murder trial attorney, and he kept getting in trouble.  If I were Vinny, I probably would've quit the case after the first time I got in trouble, you know?  I would be hurt that I kept getting scolded.  I would start worrying I was going to get scolded, even before I actually got scolded!  I love how Vinny persevered.  I love how he knew he was going to keep getting in trouble (even yelling to his girlfriend before he boarded the bus, "Just keep bailing me out!").  I love how he knew the judge was going to be (and was) annoyed with him.

It got me thinking.  There are a lot of people in my life who are mean, snarky, or critical.  And it bowls me over each time they act that way towards me and I get really hurt.  You would think after 43 years (*gulp*) I would learn by now like Vinny to expect it from these people.

So here's me yesterday, I almost couldn't wait for someone to make a snotty remark to me just to see if Vinny's little mantra would help me.  Well, it did and it didn't.  My kids wanted to go to Kmart to get school clothes but I still had some typing for work to do.  They kept bugging me, I kept telling them to wait till I was done, and they got loud and obnoxious and, yep, mean.  At first, yes, I could hear Vinny going, "Well, there's a big surprise," but after the 100th or so time, I started to lose my cool.  In fact, I put off my typing and took them to Kmart just so they'd shut the heck up.  But I guess deep down I'm not hurt at all because I do know that the problem is with them not me, it's not me being a bad mom or a bad person just because I wouldn't drop everything and take them to Kmart, so I guess I did learn something from Vinny after all.

Six Word Saturday (7/24/10)

Wow, God answers my unspoken prayers

I got to see "grace" in action this past week.  My daughter came home in tears from the neighbor's house, and my son (ever ready to rat out his sister -- I hate that about siblings!) pipes up that she tried to steal something but they caught her.  I asked her if she gave it back and she screamed yes and ran to her room and cried for a really long time.  When she felt better she came out and I asked if she was ready for dinner, and she asked me if I was going to tell my husband and I said no.  She looked really relieved and I just treated her like normal.  (From counseling I have been trying every day to do some little thing that shows each of my kids that they mean something to me, and I don't think being caught stealing something should wreck that.)

Anyway, during the night my daughter sent me an email saying how great it was that I was her mom and that she loved me, etc., etc. -- stuff I was SO SURPRISED to read.  I was just blown away.  Then I remembered my "unspoken prayer" (more like, unspoken complaint) to God.  I just finished that Structured Recovery Group last month and, honestly, the one thorn that was still sticking me was the fact that I have had this big fantasy about Claudia, that she would love me back.  And my kids are always complaining and fighting and mean (and my husband thinks it's just them "being kids" but it breaks my heart to watch that), and in those times I had been reflecting on how Claudia probably wouldn't be such a mean awful kid and I would start missing her.  I love my kids but I wish they'd love me back.  After I read my daughter's email, now I know she does, and God answered my prayers.